Campaigns & Elections

Hardball host Chris Matthews on Tuesday smeared Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry as "Bull Connor with a smile," referring to the segregationist Commissioner of Public Safety who famously used attack dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protesters in the '60s. Left-wing journalist Wayne Slater, who has previously lumped Tea Party protesters with the Holocaust museum shooter,…

While the media are sharpening the knives against Republican presidential aspirant Gov. Rick Perry on the nature of jobs created under his watch in Texas, fairness would dictate a look at the Obama administration's jobs record, particularly on his pet project of ushering in the age of renewable energy and with them "green jobs." As Vanessa Ho of the SeattlePI.com website reported yesterday,…

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman, Sunday, offered a snarky, condescending take on both Rick Perry and George W. Bush. Appearing on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, he delivered a less than enthusiastic take on the new presidential candidate. Talking to Matthews, he informed, "Some people, especially the Bush people, think that Rick Perry is shallow. They say he's- they say he's only…

For MSNBC, Gov. Rick Perry's (R-Texas) record of enforcing existing law, protecting the border, and implementing "only a limited version" of the DREAM Act constitutes an "aggressive stance" on immigration that "may cost him some votes" in the Hispanic community, even though Perry's position on the DREAM Act is considered moderate within the Republican Party. MSNBC fill-in anchor Craig Melvin…

On Monday's CBS Evening News and Tuesday's Early Show, CBS failed to cover an Iowa Tea Party activist's confrontation with President Obama. Both ABC's GMA and NBC's Today mentioned the encounter. Just days earlier, CBS and ABC spotlighted how left-wing protesters heckled Mitt Romney at an Iowa appearance and how the Republican apparently made a "gaffe" in reply. NBC correspondent Chuck Todd…

CNN's own poll recently showed that voters 60-to-one believe the economy is the most pressing issue facing the United States, as opposed to policies toward gays and lesbians. CNN's Anderson Cooper apparently thought the views of Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann toward gays and lesbians important enough to merit the lead segment on his Monday show. "We begin tonight 'Keeping…

During an interview with former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered: "How does the President get this excitement going again surrounding his re-election bid so that he can keep this office?" Throughout the segment, the headline on screen read: "Beyond Hope and Change; How Can President Regain Magic of 2008?" In response to Lauer, Gibbs…

She never mentioned colleague Michelle Goldberg by name, but it's hard to think that former Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers didn't have her in mind when she penned her August 15 Daily Beast column, "Stop Attacking Evangelicals!" You may recall that on August 14, Goldberg laid out her Michele Bachmann-is-a-theocrat conspiracy theory.

On Sunday's Face The Nation, CBS's Norah O'Donnell interrogated Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on a 2006 statement she made about being "submissive" to her husband. O'Donnell not only played a clip of the five-year-old moment, but asked her three questions about the biblical verse: "What do you mean wives should be submissive to their husbands?...Do you think submissive means subservient?" […

On the August 15 "Dylan Ratigan Show," MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan and the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney sparred over the extent to which Big Labor impacts the political process relative to other industries. Ratigan, who has made a career out of bemoaning the influence that the energy, banking, health care, defense, telecom, and agriculture sectors exert on politics, omitted organized labor…

The London Daily Telegraph may be a Conservative Party-friendly newspaper, but it's certainly doing Republican candidate Michele Bachmann no favors on this side of the Pond with a very unflattering, sexually-suggestive photo of the Minnesota congresswoman eating a foot-long corndog at the Iowa State Fair that's making the rounds on the Internet. The Telegraph's U.S. editor Toby Harnden…

ESPN's LZ Granderson labeled Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as "crazy" Monday, and CNN anchor Kyra Phillips seemed to credit his judgment. Granderson, a CNN contributor, said of a Bachmann candidacy that "the people aren't going to vote for crazy. And she [Bachmann] still registers as crazy with a lot of independents." Phillips immediately responded that "If you could go back decades, there…

On Friday I noted an AP report about some trouble within the Democratic Party coalition as some labor unions have threatened to boycott the 2012 nominating convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. I wondered if the major mainstream media outlets would report the news. Unfortunately it appears many haven't. A search of major newspapers published between August 12 and 15 and featuring the words…

On Monday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd described liberal wishful thinking as "conventional wisdom" as he explained how: "The Obama team has been taking comfort in the fact that they believe this Republican race is moving to the Right, that it's a race to the Right. And they take comfort in that and they think that's going to help them long term." At the same time,…